Arch Linux System Maintenance

Read the News

Often, the developers will provide important information about required configurations and modifications for known issues. The Arch Linux user is expected to consult these places before performing an upgrade.

The Arch Linux News is posted here: [1] You can subscribe to the rss feed by adding: [2] to your favorite feed reading software. You can also get news by subscribing to the Arch Announce mailing list: [3].

Pay special attention to news items with "manual intervention required" in their header. You can avoid a lot of trouble and embarrassment by reading the instructions in these news announcements and following them.

Update the system

Warning: System updates should be performed with care. It is very important to read and understand this before proceeding.

Sync, refresh the package database, and upgrade your entire system with:

# pacman -Syu

Or, same thing:

# pacman --sync --refresh --sysupgrade

If you are prompted to upgrade pacman itself at this point, respond by pressing Y, and then reissue the pacman -Syu command when finished.

Note: Occasionally, configuration changes may take place requiring user action during an update; read pacman's output for any pertinent information. See Pacnew and Pacsave Files for more details.

Keep in mind that Arch is a rolling release distribution. This means the user doesn't have to reinstall or perform elaborate system rebuilds to upgrade to the newest version. Issuing pacman -Syu periodically (and noting the above warning) keeps the entire system up-to-date and on the bleeding edge. At the end of this upgrade, the system will be completely current.

See Pacman and FAQ#Package Management for answers regarding updating and managing packages. See this page if you have not update your system for a long time.

Packages

• When you update, check pacman output for instructions related to updated packages.

• Use pacman -Qdt to find orphaned packages, and pacman -Qo <file> to find out which package owns that particular file.

• Search for .pac* files and merge them with configuration files (see Pacnew and Pacsave Files).

• Check for out-of-date or unmaintained AUR packages on your system. Sometimes these can cause problems when you update.

• Check the size of /var and clear pacman's cache once in a while. A useful tool to assist in this process is pkgcacheclean.

Hardware

• Check disk (use fstab options to check at boot)

• Search logs for errors (list scripts, tools to make this easier/more automated)

• Look into errors as soon as possible - do not leave them unattended to.

Bad Practices

• Linking random libraries together to get a program to work.

• Updating once a year.

• Copy-pasting commands into the terminal without at least reading man pages to understand what you are doing to your system.

• Clearing the entire package cache using pacman -Scc - this removes the possibility to do package downgrades in cases of breakage.

See also

• General Recommendations#System administration
• Category:System administration